While it is true that during the last years a growing social awareness has been experienced on environmental protection, it is no less true that society still does not change attitude about our individual habits. We continue to contaminate and we can see it in the streets of numerous places in the world, which are full garbage of all kinds. To what extent is pollution penalized? Are environmental crimes punished or unpunished?
In Ecology Verde we want to address this issue and make known What are environmental crimes with examples and meet the organizations responsible for judging them.
Examples of crimes against the environment
These are some examples of environmental crimes.
- Indiscriminate felling.
- Illegal animal hunting.
- Wild animal traffic.
- Use explosives or poisons for hunting.
- Toxic spills.
- Dangerous waste management.
- Illegal fishing
- Finning or trade with shark fins.
- Introduction of invasive species.
- Introduction of non -regular non -native species.
- Abandonment of domestic animals.
- Hunting, fishing, capture and trade of protected fauna and flora species.
Organisms that judge environmental crimes at international level
After knowing what are the crimes against the environment with some examples, we go on to see which are the main Organizations responsible for judging environmental crimes at the international level And that they find and stop criminals:
- International Criminal Court.
- International Court of Justice.
- Interpol
The International Criminal Court
In 1998, together with the approval of the “Rome Statute”, the International Criminal Courtbeing in 2002 when it entered into force. The International Criminal Court is linked to United Nations and is a complementary body of national criminal jurisdictions. This body is empowered to judge people about the most serious crimes that have international significance, including in 2016 the Crimes against the environment.
The International Court of Justice
Regarding conflicts between states, these are resolved by International Court of Justicespecifically by the “CIJ Environmental Room“Which knows about the demands of one State in front of another in relation to violations against the environment and crimes against natural resources.
An example of this is found in 2018, when the International Court of Justice settled a conflict between Costa Rica and Nicaragua, which arose when Nicaragua caused damage to the island of Portillos (Costa Rica), as a consequence of dredging works carried out with the intention of joining the San Juan River with the Caribbean Sea.
Interpol and the persecution of environmental crimes
This organization is “International Criminal Police Organization”And it is formed by a total of 194 countries. Its purpose is to help the police of these member countries to collaborate with each other for the persecution of international crimes, facilitating information between countries and giving technical support to the internal agencies of each country.
The Interpol It has one Environmental Security Unitwhose purpose is to combat environmental crimes internationally. To do this, it has a national group specialized in environmental security, whose purpose is to focus the activities to fight environmental crimes that affect a certain country or countries, joining both police and customs and customs and intergovernmental organizations and intergovernmental and non -governmental organizations, thus enabling collaboration with scientists and experts in combating that kind of crimes. It also has four teams that operate worldwide (fishing, hunting, pollution and wildlife), helping to dismantle organizations responsible for environmental crimes.
Interpol team for the application of the law in terms of fishing crimes
Working to combat Fishing crimeslike the illegal fishingperforms an evaluation of the national organizations in charge of the application of the law and provides support tools to neutralize and prevent fishing crimes both in sea and in rivers, lakes, lagoons and other aquatic areas.
As an example of crime against the environment Related to fishing, we highlight the “Operation Spindrift”, carried out in 2014 whose objective was the disarticulation of a transactional trade network of a kind of snail called “sea ears”, exchanging information between seven countries.
Interpol equipment for the application of the law on pollution
Collaborates with member countries to detect and stop Crimes in pollutionhelping national agencies to stop those responsible for such crimes.
In turn, the Interpol has different projects whose purpose is to combat the different crimes in pollution, such as “the EDEN project”, in charge of the detection and disarticulation of the trade of illegal waste of waste Internationally and the “Maritime Pollution project”, which addresses the crimes of marine pollution as illegal spills from ships, in order to avoid the cost of the recycling and treatment expenses of said waste.
Interpol Team for the application of the Law on Wildlife Matter
Help the detection and neutralization of criminal networks of illegal trade and wildlifecoordinating several operations through which numerous species object of illegal trade have been seized.
Among them, it is to highlight the “Operation Thunderstoral” carried out in 2018 and aimed at Illegal species trade In 93 countries, mobilizing police services, customs and borders (among others) and whose action resulted in almost 2000 seizures, as well as the identification of 1,400 suspects, arrested around the world. Another of the best Examples of crimes against the environment Related to the illegal trade of species or parts of these is the “Operation Worthy II” in 2015, whose objective was the detection of the networks of Ivory traffic In Africa, detecting a total of 25 criminal groups, whose result was the seizure of 4.5 tons of elephant ivory and rhino horns, as well as the arrest of 376 people involved.
If you want to read more articles similar to What are the crimes against the environment with exampleswe recommend that you enter our environmental policy category.
